Infinite Possibilities
by Jaxa
Summary: A violent past can influence one's character in many different ways which path would you follow? And what if Psi Corps interferes?


**Infinite Possibilities**  
  
© by Jaxa (jaxa@teeptown.de),  
19.03.03/10.04.03/18.05.03  


  
_Author's notes:   
  
This story is about a roleplay character of mine, written for a LARP group I am part of. However, it can be read (and understood ;)) without knowing anything about our games since I mainly wrote this to help me develop a new character.  
  
Thanks go once more to Sue for being my beta-reader._  
  
  


_St. Petersburg, Earth, 2220_  


  
"Ya stupid bitch! Shut the fuck up!" The man raised his arm again to strike her once more. "How could ya fuckin' lie to me about this? Eh? Wanna make me angry? I'll give ya anger!" With a scowl on his face he took the knife from the kitchen table.   
  
The woman was lying on the floor now, defenceless, beaten into submission by her husband. One of her eyes was swollen shut, her lower lip bleeding. The knife cut through her flesh. Once, twice, an endless number of times it seemed. Until she lay completely still on the floor, her jeans and the white blouse stained red by the blood that was gushing out of some of the deeper wounds, oozing out of the smaller ones, slowly but surely building a pool of red liquid on the floor. It covered the man's hands, the knife, and was slowly being soaked in by the shabby old carpet that lay under the table. The whole world seemed to have turned red.   
  
Finally it was silent. No more shouting, no more screams. Only the man's ragged breath filled the air.  
  
For a few seconds he appeared to be a bit shaken. But then he shrugged it off, and spit at his former wife, hitting her in the face. "Serves ya right, mindfrikker!" With that he turned around, opened the fridge to take a bottle of beer out of it, and left the house. On his way out he could be heard mumbling: "I need more of that stuff – I jus' hope Alyosha's is already open!"  
  
A few more minutes passed in complete silence. Then small steps could be heard, coming out of the living room. A hand pushed open the kitchen's door, quietly, carefully, fearfully. With wide eyes a child entered the room. Her small hands instantly flew to her mouth when she saw the woman lying on the floor. Her voice was low when she asked: "Momma?"  
  
The backdoor screeched.  
  
A scream filled the silence.  
  
  


_Teeptown, Earth, eight years later  
_

  
"I say mundanes are stupid!"  
  
"Ain't! They're mean!"  
  
"Stupid!"  
  
"Mean!"  
  
"Stupid!"  
  
"Mean!"   
  
The last word had been yelled rather than spoken, and finally another child decided to interfere: "Hey, this is supposed to be constructive playing time! Note the constructive? That doesn't mean yellin'. Come on, let's play something together rather than shout at each other. Besides, we all know that they are both stupid _and _mean!" The boy grinned at his friends.  
  
The girl who had insisted that mundanes were mean nodded. "Yes, you are right of course." She turned around so that she was facing the other boy once more. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Josh. Fighting is no good for the Corps." The expression on her face was serious – almost scarily serious.  
  
"It's okay, Kay. Come on, let's say the pledge together, and then we can play Cops 'n Blips! And you get to be the Cop this time. You're the best Cop, anyway." He smiled sheepishly, knowing only to well that he would never be as good at hunting as his friend. Katrina was known for her solid blocks and sharp scans, and she knew it. _And _she looked kind of cute when she got angry. But he'd never admit _that_, of course.  
  
The other kids from their Cadre joined them as they formed a circle to say the words they had been taught years ago:  
  
_"I pledge my body, heart, soul, and mind to the service of Earth Alliance, and the people who dwell on her myriad spheres. I promise to keep the laws, to keep the faith, to keep my eyes on the truth. I pledge to serve my comrades, my cadre, and the Corps. The Corps teaches, guides, and provides. The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. We are the children of the Corps."_  
  
Without any further words they suddenly all ran off into different directions, as if one cue. Or at least to the mundane eye no further words had been spoken. These kids didn't need to use such crude means of communication. In fact, it had taken them only a few seconds to determine who would get to play a Cop this time, and who would have to be a Blip. Telepathy worked so much faster and _smoother _than normal speech.  
  
Being the Blip never was very popular of course, but someone had to do it, and this time it was Melissa's, Alec's, and Andria's turn. They would get five minutes to find a hiding place, and in the meantime the "Cops" were to run back to their Cadre house and wait there.  
  
Panting, Katrina came to a halt right in front of the door that led into the building. She turned around to face her comrades; Josh, Isaac, and Kelly were looking at her expectantly. It was odd, but somehow she always got the role of the leader, without even asking for it. Maybe that was a good thing – Psi Cops were leaders. And the strongest and smartest teeps. She really wanted to be a Psi Cop.   
  
"How much longer?" Kelly asked excitedly.  
  
*Shh, no talking! We're Psi Cops, remember? Psi Cops don't talk like mundanes do.*  
  
*Sorry…" The girl bit her lip. She had been the last one to join Cadre Prime, and even after five years of being there she still somehow was a bit different. Maybe it was because she was the only kid who still got visits from her parents, her biological parents. Kay had been three years old when she had walked into the common room for the first time, on Birthday, firmly holding the hand of the Psi Cop who had brought her there. She barely remembered life outside. Josh had gotten his Psi at the age of two and been found by the Corps shortly thereafter, and Isaac had been born to the Corps. They all were eleven years old now, and soon they would leave their Cadre to enter Minor Academy. This was what Kay both wished for and dreaded at the same time – soon she would have to study even harder if she wanted to make it into the MetaPol prep classes. It was a great opportunity to prove herself, though.  
  
*It's all right. We're not hunting them, yet.* She took a look at her watch. *Two more minutes! What do you think, where will they be hiding? I say the trees in front of the Basement."  
  
*They've got Alec with them. He _always _hides somewhere close to the Cadre houses when he gets to play a Blip. He probably thinks we won't search for them there, since this is also where we'll start our hunt.*  
  
Josh was good at this, too. He knew what others thought, without having to scan them first, knew how to predict what they were about to do. Katrina wasn't very good at that, maybe because she sometimes found it very difficult to understand her peers. Actually, she considered Josh her only true equal in their small Cadre, strength-wise. Other than that of course all teeps were equal, in the Corps. Blips were a bit different, but she wasn't yet sure to what extent. Hopefully she'd learn about that at the Academy; it seemed important, somehow.  
  
As always, Isaac remained quiet. He never talked much, especially when they were playing games. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy them or didn't want to participate – not that the teachers and Grins would tolerate any such behaviour – no, he was just a bit odd. Quite smart actually, in some of their classes even better than Katrina, but he never really managed to compete with the other kids when it came to telepathy. Just because he had gotten his Psi so early didn't mean that he had to be very strong.   
  
Focusing on the hunt again, Katrina took another look at her watch. *Okay, time to go! You're probably right, Josh, so let's go for the Cadre houses first!* For the first time this day she seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself – the grin on her face had an almost wolfish quality to it.  
  
*Yes, and let's hurry. Remember, the winner gets to eat the losers' desserts!* With that, Josh darted off running, and the other two kids soon followed.  
  
They were playing a game that the children of the Corps had been playing for the past two hundred years. It hadn't been named Cops and Blips all the time, but the goal had always been the same: teach them what their future role in this world would be, and make sure they understood which one was the right side. Not only in the popular vids like "John Trakker" the Blips were portrayed as being stupid and living a miserable life. That was also what their teachers told them, and what everyone in the Corps showed them, every day. Psi Corps was good, and the Blips were bad. Some of them could be shown the right way, but others unfortunately had to be killed to ensure the safety of the Corps. And the mundanes', of course, as the Pledge stated. To these children this was the only truth there was.  
  
Even as they were now hunting their comrades and friends, they silently agreed to the rules the Corps had set up for them. The Blips were hiding in rather unimaginative places, and blooping at least a little bit more than they could have prevented from happening; no matter how much they hated having to lose, they just couldn't help ensuring that the Cops won. Psi Corps always won.   
  
Straining their senses, both normal and telepathic, Katrina and the others searched for their friends.  
  
In the distance, two adults had been watching the intercourse silently. They now followed the excited children's minds as they ran off in the distance.  
  
"Very promising. Oh, yes, very promising indeed. I hear that at least two of them are very likely to became Psi Cops one day." The silver-haired man turned away from the scene, his clear blue eyes focusing on his companion.   
  
"Absolutely, Sir. They also test quite high on the non-telepathic tests. Smart, dedicated, and strong telepaths."  
  
"It seems that our breeding and teaching programs produce good results."  
  
"Well, I'm afraid only one of them was born within the Corps. The girl appears to be the result of a marriage between a Blip and a mundane. Most unfortunate that, but at least we found her in time. Too late for the mother, though." He furrowed his brow, as if to put an emphasis on the fact that he didn't approve of the child's family tree.  
  
"I guess nothing in this world can be perfect, even a future Psi Cop…" With that the man nodded at the teacher and silently walked away, following the path that lead back to the administrative buildings.   
  
At the other end of the park, Katrina and her friends had just discovered the "Blips" and were now encircling them. They wouldn't get away.  
  


***  


  
It was late at night when Katrina lay on her bed, quietly staring at the ceiling as she waited for sleep to come. It took longer than usual. They had won the game of course, and at lunch she had decided to let the losers keep their dessert; after all, they never really had had any chance against the Cops. And you had to make the Blips feel comfortable and welcome in the Corps, at least those who hadn't really fought back, hadn't you?  
  
No, what was preoccupying her mind right now was the quarrel between her and Josh. She hadn't continued to fight with him because they weren't supposed to, but deep down she still believed that she had been right. The reason why the mundanes did all these bad things to teeps, the reason why they hated them so much, it wasn't that they were stupid. No, they were simply mean. Oh, so vicious and mean.  
  
_"Momma?"  
  
Biting her lips she walked further into the kitchen. She saw the strange red stains on the floor and carpet, but did not really understand what they meant. They looked a bit like her watercolors, the ones she loved so much because they had been her only gift on Christmas. Momma had bought them, and Katrina loved painting pretty pictures for her. She would even put them up at the fridge, but her daddy would tear them down every time when he smelled bad and said _bad _words. He didn't like her pictures then.  
  
She could see her momma lying on the floor. She was sleeping. Her momma often slept after she had talked to her daddy. Always when her daddy smelled bad and was really loud and said _bad _words. Her momma didn't want her to repeat those words, so she didn't do it. But she knew they were _bad _words.  
  
Momma was sleeping, and she didn't move. Katrina bent down and carefully touched her face, trying to rouse her, trying to make her tell her that everything was all right. But she didn't move. She just lay there, sleeping.  
  
She was shaking her now, her tiny arms not strong enough to actually move her body much, but she tried. She got angry, a bit, she wanted her momma to wake up! She shouldn't be sleeping. What if daddy came back now and saw her sleeping? He would get angry again! Momma had to wake up!  
  
With a strength borne by anger and fear, she managed to turn around her momma's body. Her hands became all sticky with this red _stuff _she didn't know. It smelled weird. Momma was covered by it, it even had gotten on her clothes; maybe she'd been painting a picture when daddy had come home, and he had gotten angry because of that? Daddy didn't like it when her clothes got dirty.  
  
Momma's eyes were closed, still sleeping. But she looked weird. She didn't look like her momma.  
  
She had just been about to get momma something to drink - maybe she would wake up then - when she heard a sound behind her. She turned around, scared, hoping that it wouldn't be daddy –  
  
A scream filled the silence._  
  
With a sigh Katrina got up from her bed and walked to the window. It was a clear night outside, and thousands of stars were glittering in the black sky. She loved starry nights; it made her happy to know that there were all these suns out there, just like Earth's own sun, and that billions of these suns had planets just like Earth circling them, and that maybe on of those planets a kid just like her was at this very moment staring into the sky and looking at her. Sometimes she would try to reach out with her Psi, try to touch that kid's mind. She never even considered that whoever was out there might not be a teep like her. Homo superior.  
  
Someday she would get to fly a Starfury, and _be _there. Someday…  
  
The scream that day had come from Mrs. Walker, who had heard the shouting going on, and decided to check if her mother was all right. She was a nice old lady who had lost her husband years ago; she never really had talked about it, but Kay distinctly remembered that she seemed very sad most of the time. But she was a friendly neighbour, especially for the kind of neighbourhood they used to live in back then; she would often come over and check if she and her mother were all right, after her father had left to get drunk.  
  
Katrina's memories got a bit blurry after this. She remembered hearing Mrs. Walker's horrified cry, and then only short scenes, almost of photo-like quality, of what had happened afterwards. The old lady must have called the police, because they had arrived shortly thereafter, with a doctor, who had only been able to verify the death of her mother. No, not death; murder.  
  
Someone had taken her to the police station. It had been a sunny day outside, and she clearly remembered wanting to go to the park with her _momma. _However, the policemen had only looked at her very strangely when she had told them this. She had been excited to drive in a real police car, but she had wanted for her mother to be there! When she had finally begun to cry, a lady had quietly put her arm around her shoulders, without saying anything. Katrina remembered being very, very scared.  
  
_"I want my momma. Where is she? Is daddy mad at her coz she played with the water-colors?" The child was biting her lower lip thoughtfully, and finally settled for a frown. "Momma says I shouldn't talk with strangers."  
  
"I'm sure your mother also told you that police isn't like normal strangers. Look, I brought you a cookie. You do like cookies, don't you?" The smile on the police officer's face seemed fake.  
  
"I'm not s… s'posed to take sweets from strangers." She was pouting now.  
  
"That's a good rule. How about me telling you my name; then we wouldn't be strangers anymore, right?"  
  
The girl looked at her quizzically.  
  
"My friends call me Lee. What do your friends call you? Like the kids in kindergarten?"  
  
"I don't go to kindergarten. Momma wants me to go there, but daddy doesn't like it."  
  
"Oh. Umm, what about the kids in your street?"  
_  
_"Kay. But my momma doesn't like it when they call me like that. She says I got a pretty name, and people shouldn't change it like that."  
  
"And what name does your mother call you then?"  
  
"Katrina."  
  
"That really is a pretty name, Katrina." She was smiling again and putting an emphasis on the name, as if wanting to make sure that the girl saw that she had said it the right way. "Now that we aren't strangers anymore, would you like a cookie? They're chocolate chip cookies. I love chocolate chip, don't you?"  
  
The girl didn't reply, but she took the cookie out of the officer's outstretched hand and quietly started nibbling it._  
  
Strangely enough, she couldn't remember washing her hands, or changing her clothes. She wondered what she must have looked like that day, her hands, her shirt, her pants, all covered by her mother's blood. Katrina couldn't see herself clearly in front of her mind's eye, but she nevertheless felt sick when trying to imagine the scene.  
  
_"She's refusing to talk to us about what happened. She insists that her father will get mad if she tells us."  
  
"Damn." The sergeant angrily bang his balled fist on the table. "She's the only eye-witness we have. The neighbour only heard them arguing, but she can't tell us what exactly was going on in there."  
  
"Maybe we should get a psychologist to talk to her. She's still in denial, but I'm sure she'll be in deep shock once the truth fully registers with her." The woman sighed.  
  
"Yeah, I guess that might help. Doesn't department 23 have a new telepath working for them, just for cases like this one? I heard she's pretty good for a mindfrikker."  
  
"Mike, you know we're not supposed to call her like that." She smiled lopsidedly. "But I must admit that these telepaths make me nervous. It's just… how they look at you, and you just know that something's wrong. I don't like 'em."  
  
"Me neither, Alexis, me neither. But I guess we'd better call her. Maybe she can get the girl to talk."  
  
"Yeah, it's worth a try…"_  
  
Kay wasn't sure why she remembered this conversation so clearly. The police officers obviously hadn't believed that she could overhear them while she was sitting on a wooden bench nearby, nibbling on her cookie. It was almost as if she could still hear them talking in hushed voices.  
  
Maybe because she hadn't known what a "mindfrikker" was, and had been curious what that woman would do. And because she had been scared when they had talked about her mother. She hadn't understood why she hadn't been there, why she had left her all alone…  
  
_"Hello, Katrina, my name is Sarah Alexander." The woman had very pretty long hair, red, like her mother's and Lala's. Lala was her favorite puppet. She wished she could hold her right now. She wanted her mother to hold her.  
  
"Where's my momma?"  
  
The telepath hesitated. "She can't be here currently. I'm sorry."  
  
"But I want my momma!" She didn't want to talk to strangers anymore.  
  
"Yes, I understand that. How about us talking a bit first?"  
  
"NO! I WANT MY MOMMA!"_  
  
And then, all of a sudden, she had felt very calm. Within seconds she had completely forgotten about her mother. All she had been wanting was to help that woman, because she was nice, and because if she helped her everything would be all right.   
  
Even now, having lived within the protecting walls of Teeptown for the past eight years, Katrina longed to feel this _safe _again.  
  
_  
_

_St. Petersburg, Earth, eight years earlier_  


  
Katrina was sitting quietly now, staring at the telepath with wide eyes.  
  
The woman was smiling at her, her voice soft when she spoke: "See, now that's better, isn't it?"  
  
The girl couldn't help but smile back. "Uh, huh." Maybe being a  
  


_**MINDFRIKKER**_  


  
actually meant being nice? It had sounded like a _bad _word, though…  
  
The telepath blinked. She had gotten that word very strong, and very clear. It had been accompanied by a sudden outburst of memories and emotions:  
_  
_

_mindfrikker, shouting, daddy, angry, beer, scared, MOMMA!, hide, watercolors, police, what's it mean?_  


  
She stared at the girl, confused. Why had her father used that term when arguing with her mother? She wasn't surprised that the police officers had used it when referring to her; unfortunately these mundanes still couldn't simply accept her as a fellow professional, even though she'd really done a good job for the past weeks. Sarah suppressed the urge to sigh. They'd probably never accept her.  
  
But why the father? Sarah remembered reading the girl's profile, and there hadn't been anything mentioned about her mother being a teep. Besides, had that been the case, not she would be sitting here right now, but a bunch of Psi Cops.  
  
"Katrina, tell me, did your mother ever _talk _to you without saying anything? Like, you just knew what she meant to say?"  
  
The child tilted her head, as if trying to understand what the woman was talking about. Finally she frowned and settled for a confused: "People can't talk without talking."  
  
That brought a smile on the telepath's face. "Yes, of course. What I was trying to say… Can you sometimes see pictures in your head when your mother is talking to you, of things you haven't seen before? And maybe you can hear your mother talk even though her lips aren't moving?"  
  
Obviously that was too much for a three-year-old to grasp. Still frowning, the girl began to play with a loose strand of her chestnut-colored hair. Seemingly she had decided that this adult was too boring to talk to. Then all of a sudden she looked up and asked: "What's a tell-a-pass do?"  
  
"Huh?" Sarah had no idea what the girl was talking about, or where that question had come from.  
  
Katrina looked at her, pouting a little. Didn't that adult know anything? "That's what they call you. Tell a pass."  
  
"Oh!" Now the teep couldn't help but chuckle quietly. "A _telepath_. That's what I was trying to explain to you. People who can talk without using normal words."  
  
"Like my momma?"  
  
"I don't know. Maybe. Did your mother ever talk to you without saying anything out loud?" The woman's gaze was very intense as she watched the girl. Unfortunately Sarah was only rated P3. Had she been stronger, she might just have scanned her; as it was, she would have to do it the mundane way. She could just have gone and informed Psi Corps and have some Psi Cops check her out, of course. But the girl seemed scared enough already as it was, without having several black-uniformed people rushing at her. She felt a bit sorry for the kid, fellow telepath or not, and didn't want to add to that. Right now Sarah simply wished to know more about the psyche of three-year-olds. It was obvious that this girl reacted differently than an adult would have, and she wasn't sure how to treat her.  
  
Katrina tilted her head a bit. "Momma…" She hesitated. "Momma sometimes tells me things daddy can't hear. Things that make daddy mad if he knows about 'em." The girl looked down, not sure if she was supposed to tell the _telepath _about this.  
  
"You don't have to talk about those things if you don't want to." Sarah smiled reassuringly. "Why don't you try to describe how it feels when your mother does that. I'm sure that it's okay if you tell me about that. Is it different from when she talks about things your father can hear?"  
  
"Uh, huh. It tickles." The girl grinned now, obviously remembering the feeling, and enjoying the memory.  
  
"Tickles?" Now that would be a new way of describing telepathy…  
  
"Like when momma picks me up and tickles me, but in my head. It feels funny. Momma says it's our secret." Then she looked up guiltily all of a sudden. "You won't tell?"  
  
Sarah sighed. Obviously she would have to call Psi Corps after all.  
  
"No, of course not. How about another cookie?"  
  
  


_Teeptown, Earth, eight years later  
_

  
Katrina looked back up at the starry sky. It was pitch black, and even though the lights of Teeptown were shining bright beneath her window as the city lay quietly in the night, she still could see the Milky Way. It was so pretty.   
  
She didn't care much about arts - actually she hated paintings and was already dreading the trip to the Louvre that was planned for the next month - but this kind of beauty she could appreciate. Maybe because it hadn't been tainted by mundane hands.  
  
This sky, the universe itself, had been created so long ago she found it difficult to imagine all those years; aeons before any human had done as much as set foot on this planet, let alone gone and killed other humans in all kinds of witch hunts, and pogroms, and massacres. Kay didn't believe in God, but sometimes when she was looking up at the sky, she felt a kind of awe she couldn't describe properly, using words alone. It was a weird feeling that seemed to grab her heart and squeeze it tightly, but not like fear. No, this feeling was much better. It was like a promise.  
  
Not much longer, and she would be there, among the stars.  
  


_TBC_  


  
  



End file.
